


of cold and clammy skin

by calmbeforethestorm



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, Near Death Experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:45:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmbeforethestorm/pseuds/calmbeforethestorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>as winter takes me now  <br/>of cold and clammy skin <br/> a barren empty womb  <br/>as i am born again</p>
<p>Ray dies.</p>
<p>Or at least, he's dead for a few minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of cold and clammy skin

It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. In fact, it’s actually somewhat nice. He opens his eyes to find himself surrounded in… nothing. There is no land or sky. Just pure, bright nothing. For a while, Ray wanders through the seemingly limitless land, until he realizes that not a single thing has changed or will ever change. There is no one else is here, and yet, he doesn’t feel lonely. He’s rather content, actually.

The concept of time is meaningless; it feels as though an eternity has passed and he no longer remembers how he even got here. He forgets his life, his friends and family, and his name. All he knows is the warmth of this ethereal place and the tranquil waves of light that keep everything aglow. Everything is bright and he feels weightless. As though he could simply drift away. He nearly does, if it wasn’t for a worried voice that kept pulling him back.

**"C’mon you bloody ass, don’t you dare die on me."**

The voice is familiar, and the man tries to think where he’s heard it before, but can’t remember. He can’t remember anything, except for the warm light. Only quiet whispers and cloudy thoughts that don’t make any sense. Everything here is peaceful and safe, but the voice continues to disrupt that. It makes him sad, for some reason. Why is this voice so upset? And why does it matter so much to him?

He hears a different voice this time; this one more aggressive, though fear and pain cracks through at times, **"Godfuckingdammit Ray, don’t you dare die, you can’t do that to us!"**

He frowns, confused. That’s his name. His name is Ray. How could he have forgotten?

_It’s okay, I’m okay. I like it here, please don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine._

But they can’t hear him. The two desperate voices continue to call for him, pleading for him to come back to them. Ray notices a small change in the landscape; a small darkness in the distance. He takes a few steps, and realizes that the closer he gets to the pitch black… thing, the louder the voices get.

He decides to follow them, curious. It gets colder and darker, and he stops multiple times to look back at the light, nearly going back to it. The light is safe. Nothing bad can happen there. And for some reason, Ray somehow seems to know that if he goes any farther towards the voices, he’ll never be able to go back to that warm, gentle place. And that scares him.

But, the closer he gets to the voice, the more his focus clears up. The more his memory returns to him. He knows these voices. Two of the most important people in his life. What were their names? Ray tries to remember, but things are still foggy. He presses forward.

**“Just wake up, for christ’s sake, Ray! Wake the bloody hell up!”**

He starts to run, the urgency of the voices pushing him forward.

**“He’s— he’s gone, Gav! He’s fucking gone, give it a goddamn rest!”**

Gav. Gavin. 25 years old. Sandy blond hair. A stupid, clumsy idiot from England. Slo-mo. The Vav to his X-Ray. His boyfriend.

**“No! I’m not giving up on him! We can’t give up on him, Michael! He’s not gone, he can’t be, he’s going to be alright. He wouldn’t do that to us.”**

Michael. 26 years old. Brown, almost reddish hair. Freckles. Always yelling at Gavin for something. One of the people he trusted most and had known longest. His other boyfriend.

It’s sort of but not really complicated, he remembers.

Above Ray, heavy drops of rain fall. With every cold raindrop that hit his skin, he shudders as memories began to slowly form once more. His childhood all the way to adulthood, rebuilding bit by bit, his very life flashing before his eyes. He felt dizzy, overcome with emotion as he watched his best and worst memories play around him.

_How can this be? Why did I forget? Let me remember!_ He yelled, not sure if anyone would even hear him, but trying to understand. Perhaps someone was listening, as an instant later Ray pressed at his temples, brief flashes blinding him with images.

A car ride. Michael and Gavin bickering in the front seats. Driving over a bridge. A semi-truck swerving into their lane. Being slammed over the railing, into the river below. Struggling to get a seatbelt undone as the car filled with water. Vehicle sinking to the bottom and straining to be free as the water continued to rise. Being unable to breathe, feeling chest constrict in pain at the lack of oxygen. Choking as water fills lungs. Hearing banging on the window.

Then, darkness.

Suddenly, in front of him, a new scene formed. There was a storm, with fierce winds and threatening booms of thunder. Three bodies were beside a riverbed, one of whom wasn’t moving. In the distance, a bridge was lit up with the red and blue flashes of emergency lights. The lights were of no interest, however, to the people in front of him. Michael had his head in his hands, trembling and cursing and sobbing. **“It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault…”** He continues to repeat, unable to look at the body before him.

The second person is Gavin, urgently attempting to resuscitate the one on the ground. Ray can’t see the person yet, just a dark shadow, but sees Gavin continuously and almost violently pressing down on whomever’s chest it is, willing them to wake up. **“You can do this, you can come back, I know you’re not gone, you’re not leaving us yet. Wake up, wake up, don’t do this you bloody idiot.”** He hisses, pumping continuously and sometimes trying to breathe air into their lungs, before going straight back to the first part.

Ray feels guilty, his heart knowing what’s wrong before his mind does. It hurts to see the people he loved most in such agony, and all he wants to do is shake them and kiss them and tell them that everything’s going to be okay. The young man goes to place a hand on Gavin’s shoulder, but passes straight through him, hand disappearing like mist the moment he touches his boyfriend. Ray holds his hand up to his face, and it’s completely whole again. He stares for a long moment, before testing it again. Once more, his hand ‘dissolves’ when he tries to touch Gavin. He tries with Michael, and he passes straight through just as well.

He’s confused, thoughts still fuzzy… and yet crystal clear at the same time.

_I’m dead._

The second he realizes it, the shadow on the ground disappears and it’s him, or at least, the shell of him. Shallow cuts from glass liter his arms and face, and his skin’s nearly blue. He’s a cold, drenched, lifeless husk.

Ray doesn’t know what to do. He’s dead. What _can_ he do?

He wants to will himself to wake up, just like Gavin’s begging him to do (because he’s always done whatever the Brit’s asked of him). Everything in him wishes to hold Michael close and tell him it’s not his fault, that it’s not and it’d never be his fault.

He wants to be back with his boys.

_Please, if anyone’s listening, fuck, God or Mohammed or Buddha I don’t fucking know, I can’t leave them. Don’t let me die, not because I’m selfish, but because I can’t stand to know that my death’s going to send them spiraling out of control. Please do it for their sakes. I love them too much, I can’t let them hurt like this._

_Give me a second chance._

He doesn’t know if he actually expected it to work, and after a few seconds of nothing, he sighs. Either he’s hated by whatever deity’s out there or there was none in the first place. He’s resigned to have to watch the two loves of his life break in front of him.

Until suddenly, everything’s spinning around him, becoming a frenzied cyclone completely surrounding him in dark grey. Only two things are visible to him; on his right, the light. The soft glow is a crack in the storm, inviting him back to the peaceful heavens that are nothing but tranquility and safety. On his left, he sees Michael and Gavin, the two greatest things to happen in his life. They’re chaotic and crazy and sometimes drive Ray over the edge (literally), but he’s always felt safe with them as well. Like when he’d wake up to Gavin staring at him with a cheeky smile before ‘booping’ him on the nose, causing an eruption of laughter and tickles and makeouts. Or when he’d be in the shower and Michael would sneak in and the whole point of trying to get clean no longer mattered. Especially when they’d all curl up on the couch and attempt to play a game together, ending with Gavin screaming and Michael yelling and Ray laughing his ass off.

He thinks this would be an easy choice, but it’s not. The light was so… natural, made him feel like he was meant to be there. Ray stumbles to the left, nearly making it to the source before he hears Michael’s voice, shouting hoarsely through tears.

**“I’m so sorry, Ray. I never wanted… I’ll never forgive myself. Oh god, it’s all my fucking fault. I love you, I love you so much.”**

And that’s when the young man knows the decision he’s going to make.

He realizes that there’s nothing that matters more to him than his boyfriends, not even safety of the light. Maybe he will have to face this anarchic, dark world. But he won’t do it alone. Sprinting back to Michael and Gavin, he turns full circle, looking up, _I choose them, I choose them!_

The storm gets worse, but Ray continues to yell at the top of his metaphysical lungs, _I want to go back, I want to be alive!_ The wind’s whipping through his hair and everything’s getting more and more difficult to see, his boyfriends disappearing, as well as the light.

The world’s dark again, and Ray wonders that maybe he’s still dead and simply stuck to this black void now. Which would really suck.

But then he feels the rain dropping on his face and can hear Michael’s crying, his hand clasped around Ray’s and Gavin’s face is buried into his chest, finally given up and broken. He still can’t move or open his eyes, as if his mind is still trying to wrap around the fact that he’s alive and all of his systems are ‘rebooting’.

His sandy haired boyfriend sits up, before placing a kiss on Ray’s forehead. **“I love you.”** He whispers, voice cracking, before pushing himself off the ground.

There’s nothing that Ray can do yet, nothing to tell them he’s alive and okay and that their suffering has to stop because it’s too much for him to handle.

Except then his finger twitches.

Then his hand.

And then he can completely move and feel the beating of his heart and the neurons are firing and he can feel every bruise and ache in his body and fuck is he freezing.

**“W-Which one of you losers g-gave me mouth-to-mouth, I c-can’t get the t-taste of old pizza out of m-my mouth.”** He manages to stutter, shivering uncontrollably. Beside him, Michael scurries closer, barely able to contain his relief as he helps his boyfriend to a sitting position, holding Ray’s cheeks in his hands. Gavin’s gone, running to the highway almost instantaneously, hollering.

**“You were fucking dead and the best thing you can come back with is a dumb joke!”** Michael huffs, wiping away at his reddened eyes as Ray smiles a little, and between deep breaths he kisses at the tears still streaming. **“W-What can I s-say, I b-bring the c-comedy.”** He replies, shaking, suddenly Gavin’s behind him with his warm arms wrapped around Ray, trying to raise his body heat (and making sure that he’s still there, still alive, and this isn’t a trick).

**“I flagged down a car,”** Gavin says, pressing kisses against Ray’s temple, **“Asked him to get the EMTs down here immediately, everything’s going to be okay.”**

And Gavin’s right. Everything is okay, now that he’s back with two of the most cherished people of his. He’s alive and with the people he loves.

**“Never do that to us again, fucker.”** Michael mutters against Ray’s neck, **“Because if you go, you can bet your ass we wouldn’t be able to make it a day.”**

And Ray promises he’ll never leave them again.

Because even when they die, they’re all going to go into that warm, safe light together.

**Author's Note:**

> author’s note: this was actually the first writing i ever began about achievement hunter but i never got around to finishing it until now. inspired by ‘staying' from koda.


End file.
